The night at Camp Wawanakwa was thick with an unnatural, bone-chilling fog. The eight remaining campers—DJ, Duncan, Ezekiel, Gwen, Heather, Izzy, Lindsay, and Courtney—sat huddled around a small, flickering television. On the screen, a masked man systematically terrorized victims with a chainsaw and a rusted hook.
While Gwen, Duncan, and Izzy watched with twisted grins, enjoying every gruesome jump-scare, the others were a mess. DJ was practically vibrating with fear, his eyes squeezed shut during the bloody scenes. Lindsay was already whimpering.
As the credits rolled, Duncan and Gwen started geeking out over Bloodbath 2: Summer Camp Reign of Terror. "The scene where he uses the meat hook in the canoe? Classic," Duncan chuckled.
"Totally," Gwen agreed. "The practical effects were way better than the CGI in the sequel."
Ezekiel, however, sat there with a look of absolute boredom. He didn't flinch when the killer's hook met a victim's ribs. He didn't even blink during the jump-scares.
"You've got nerves of steel, Prairie Boy," Duncan noted, impressed despite himself.
Gwen looked at him, a chill running down her spine. There was something in Zeke's voice that suggested he wasn't just being tough—he genuinely wasn't impressed by Hollywood's version of a nightmare.
Zeke just shrugged, his eyes cold and distant. "I've seen worse things in the dark than a guy with a plastic mask, eh. This stuff? It's just make-believe. Real monsters don't make that much noise before they strike."
Heather rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. "Can we stop discussing mindless slasher flicks? I want to know where the host is so we can get this over with."
"She has a point," Courtney added, looking around nervously. "Where is Chris?"
Right on cue, the campers spotted Chris and Chef at the dock. They weren't smirking; they looked terrified. They were frantically throwing luggage onto the Boat of Losers. Without a word to the campers, they jumped on and sped away from the island, the engine roaring into the dark.
Ezekiel walked over to a bag they had dropped in their haste. Inside was a crumpled newspaper. He smoothed it out, his voice slightly trembling as he read the headline: "PSYCHO KILLER ESCAPES STATE PENITENTIARY; LAST SEEN NEAR WAWANAKWA."
"It's real, eh!" Zeke shouted. "Look at the picture! The hook, the mask... it's him!"
"Oh, please," Heather scoffed, though she looked slightly less confident. "It's a stunt. Chris is probably watching us from a trailer with a bag of popcorn."
"Then why did he forget his hair gel?" Zeke asked, holding up a tube from the bag.
The silence that followed was heavy. DJ let out a whimper. Duncan, never one to miss an opportunity to mess with him, curved his finger into a hook shape and whispered
"Boo!"
behind DJ's ear, sending the big man leaping into Gwen's arms.
"We need a plan," Gwen stated firmly. "Rule number one of horror movies: never go off alone."
"I'm going to the cabin to put on a face mask," Heather snapped, turning her back. "If you want to play 'Survivor: Goth Edition,' be my guest. We're being punked."
As the night progressed, the "game" became all too real.
* DJ was the first to "vanish." He heard a floorboard creak, saw a shadow that looked like a hook, and screamed so loud he practically ran into the "killer's" arms.
* Izzy went alone, trying to set a trap involving explosive marshmallows, only to be outsmarted by a masked figure.
* Courtney was taken next, snatched through a window while she was busy writing a formal complaint about the lack of security.
Duncan, however, wasn't playing along. He tracked the figure through the woods, caught him by the tool shed, and tackled him. He ripped off the mask to find Chef Hatchet.
"Nice try, Chef. I knew it," Duncan laughed.
Chef just grunted, "You caught me, kid. Go to the mess hall."
But near the old kitchen, the atmosphere changed. Gwen, Ezekiel, and Heather were the only ones left. Heather, convinced she had "won" by not being caught, turned to the others to gloat.
"Well, look at us. The Goth, the Prairie Boy, and the Queen," Heather mocked. "I suppose I'll let you two share the luxury suite floor while I take the bed. Zeke, you can—"
She stopped. A cold wind whistled through the kitchen. Behind Heather, a massive silhouette emerged from the fog. It wasn't Chef. This man was seven feet tall, wearing a mask of stitched-together leather, and carrying a real, rusted iron hook that scraped against the stone floor.
Screeeeee.
Heather laughed nervously. "Okay, Chef! Very funny! I get it! You can stop now!"
The man didn't stop. He raised a buzzing, smoke-belching chainsaw. The scent of gasoline filled the air. This was the real killer.
"HE'S REAL, EH!" Zeke yelled.
Heather's mocking facade shattered instantly. She fell back, her eyes wide with genuine terror. But as the killer lunged, she didn't run. She saw Gwen grab a heavy cast-iron skillet and Zeke grab a coil of thick rope.
"Heather! The industrial flour bags above him!" Gwen screamed.
In a moment of pure, desperate survival, the three enemies became a unit. Ezekiel threw the rope, snaring the killer's ankle. As the brute stumbled, Heather reached up and yanked the release cord on the shelving. POOF! Hundreds of pounds of white flour exploded over the killer, blinding him. Gwen followed up with a brutal swing of the skillet to his midsection.
Working in perfect synchronization, they shoved the blinded, roaring madman into the walk-in freezer and slammed the heavy steel bolt shut.
Chris and Chef arrived minutes later, looking like they'd seen a ghost. When they realized the trio had captured a real killer, Chris was speechless.
"You three... actually fought him?" Chris stammered. "Wow. Okay. For saving the show—and my life—you three get two weeks in the Luxury Suite."
But then, Chris's face hardened as he looked at the monitors. "However, we have an issue. Lindsay."
Lindsay had spent the entire night screaming. She screamed when a leaf fell. She screamed at a squirrel. She screamed so much that she never even attempted the challenge.
"Because of her total mental collapse and failure to participate," Chris announced, "Lindsay is automatically eliminated. The producers say she's a liability."
Heather froze. Her anger at the killer was nothing compared to the fury she felt now. She looked at the dock, where Lindsay was being led onto the Boat of Losers, still sobbing.
"YOU CAN'T DO THAT!" Heather shrieked at Chris. "She's my... she's still here! You can't just kick her out!"
"She's gone, Heather. Move on," Chris said coldly.
Heather watched the boat pull away. For the first time, a look of genuine sadness—and then burning rage—crossed her face. She was going to miss the girl who did her hair and followed her every command. She felt a strange, hollow ache in her chest.
"I'm going to destroy you for this, Chris," Heather hissed, her voice low and dangerous.
As she walked toward the Luxury Suite with Gwen and Ezekiel, she looked back at the empty camp. She was in the final seven, but she had lost her only friend.
Duncan watched them go, patting the real statue in his boot. The "Triple Threat" was now in luxury together, but the real war was just beginning.
The luxury of the suite felt suffocating. Inside, Heather was perched at a mahogany bar, nursing a glass of sparkling cider and scribbling furiously in her notebook, her eyes flashing with a mix of grief for Lindsay and hatred for Chris.
To escape the tension, Gwen and Ezekiel decided to head out onto the massive, wrought-iron balcony that overlooked the edge of the forest.
The distance from the main camp gave the silence a different weight. Down here, the cameras felt fewer, and the air smelled of pine and ancient earth. Gwen sat on a fallen cedar log just beyond the perimeter fence, while Ezekiel stood beside her, his eyes scanning the dark treeline with an intensity that never seemed to fade.
Because of the warmth of the suite, Ezekiel had shed his usual heavy hoodie. He stood now in just a simple, dark undershirt. The moonlight caught the sharp lines of his shoulders and back, revealing things the baggy clothes usually hid.
Gwen's breath hitched as she looked at him. His skin wasn't just marked by the scratches of the prairie; there were deep, jagged scars. A long, white line of a healed laceration ran across his shoulder blade, and a peculiar, circular mark sat near his collarbone. They didn't look like farming accidents. They looked like the aftermath of a fight for survival.
"Zeke..." Gwen started softly, breaking the silence. "I noticed something tonight. Back at the kitchen."
Ezekiel turned toward her, but his gray eyes remained alert, flicking back to the shadows every few seconds. "Yeah, eh?"
"During the movie... and when that psycho actually showed up. You didn't react like the others. Even Duncan, for all his tough-guy talk, was shaken. But you... you didn't look scared. You looked at that killer like he was just a problem to be solved. And you were worried about us. Even about Heather, after everything she's said to you."
Gwen stood up and moved closer, her hand hovering tentatively near the jagged scar on his arm. "These didn't come from a farm, did they? Why didn't the horror movie bother you? Why didn't you flinch when he raised that hook?"
Ezekiel tensed for a moment, then let out a long, slow breath, his shoulders dropping. He sat down on the log beside her, staring at his calloused hands.
"You know, Gwen, back where I'm from, people think the worst thing that can happen is a bad harvest or getting lost in a blizzard," Ezekiel began, his voice dropping an octave, losing its usual "home-schooled" quirkiness. "But I've... I've seen things in the dark that make a guy in a mask look like a bad joke."
He traced the scar on his forearm with his thumb. "This one? This happened on a night the news doesn't talk about. There are places in the deep woods where the shadows aren't just an absence of light. They're alive. I learned early on that if you feel fear, you die. Fear has a scent, and predators love that smell."
Gwen felt a chill that had nothing to do with the night air. "So that's why you weren't afraid of the killer?"
"There wasn't time for it, eh," Zeke shook his head. "I saw Heather freeze up. I saw you hesitate. If I start shaking too, that man finishes us all. The scars..." He paused, finally looking Gwen directly in the eyes. "...they're just reminders that I survived. And that I can protect you, too, if it comes to it."
Gwen felt her heart thumping in her throat. Ezekiel wasn't just a sheltered "prairie boy." There was an ancient, rugged toughness in him—a dark wisdom that everyone else on the island had completely overlooked.
"That's why you don't tell anyone, isn't it? How much you actually know about survival?" Gwen whispered.
"If they knew, I wouldn't be the 'weird kid' anymore. I'd be a threat," Zeke replied with a faint, somber smile. "But I told you. Because you didn't laugh at me when everyone else did."
Gwen instinctively reached out, placing her hand over his. His skin was warm despite the chill, and despite—or perhaps because of—his scars, Gwen felt safer in that moment than she had since the day she arrived at Wawanakwa.
"Thank you, Zeke," she whispered. "But promise me you'll watch out for yourself too. You don't have to take all the hits alone."
Ezekiel didn't say a word, but he squeezed her hand firmly, and together they turned back to watch the forest, which, for the first time, didn't seem quite so terrifying.
Only 7 remain: Gwen, Ezekiel, Heather, Courtney, Izzy, Duncan, and DJ.